An intimation: existence is perfection

there were two existences, then either there is no distinction between the two, in which case the two would have to be one, which is absurd; or there is a distinction between them, and then it is either by an existence other than the two of them — in which case we transfer the argument to that and demand what distinguishes it from them, and so on, giving an infinite regress (tasalsul), which is impossible — or it is by a non-existence, in which case existence would have to be distinguished by non-existence, and non-existence has no distinctness in its own essence, that it might distinguish anything else: which is absurd. If you say: it seems you do not hold the infinite regress to be impossible, as appears from the drift of your words — then I say: I invoke it in this place not because it is impossible in itself, but because it entails the absence of distinction; otherwise the series would terminate. Understand this. — Therefore there is nothing there but one single existence, individual and real, in which there is no qualification in any respect whatever; and the whole is its relations. And this is known from what has preceded.

An Influx (wāridah)

It is as though you already apprehend that perfection is existence and that deficiency is non-existence. For you know that anything which attains its end in what belongs necessarily to its own essence, in all its states and in respect of its essence, is the perfect; and whatever is not so is the deficient, in the measure of its degree of failure to attain its end. So if a deficiency in something else follows upon a thing, the thing is perfect and the other deficient; and the thing is called deficient because it is deficient in its own essence, but inasmuch as there followed upon it what is a deficiency, namely non-existence. And that is easy for you to attain; were we to adduce examples the discourse would run long, and the space here is narrow.

Once this is settled with you, you know that a thing's perfection is in the measure of the aspects of existence it has, and its deficiency in the measure of the aspects of non-existence it has. — Will you not then ascertain from this that what is the existence of the whole, beside whose existence there is no existence and everything other than which is non-existence, is perfection by its own essence, since there is no non-existence in it in any of its aspects; and that every perfection is an emergence of His perfection, and every deficiency is non-existence, and non-existence is other than He? He, then, is perfection, and what is other than He is deficiency. (“Blessed be the name of thy Lord, possessor of majesty and honour” — “glory be to thy Lord, the Lord of might, above what they describe.”)

And perhaps you incline to descend from this station; so we say: to describe a thing by something requires that that thing be the source of that description, or that there be in its essence what is such a source. And this is because all attributes (ṣifāt), relative to all essences, inasmuch as they are attributes and essences, stand on a par.